Fowey
Image copyright © [in the public domain]
PD
Results: 5 records
B01: design element - motifs - leaf - palmette
Scene Description: framed in a circle-like tendril
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © [in the public domain]
Image Source: detail of a pencil drawing by William Bassett-Smith [aka William Smith], shown in an advertissement at eBay [accessed 25 October 2006]
Copyright Instructions: PD
BBU01: design element - motifs - zigzag or X-in-a-square?
Scene Description: two rows, at the upper basin side
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © [in the public domain]
Image Source: detail of a pencil drawing by William Bassett-Smith [aka William Smith], shown in an advertissement at eBay [accessed 25 October 2006]
Copyright Instructions: PD
LB01: animal - fabulous animal or monster - dragon?
Scene Description: on the lower base side
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © [in the public domain]
Image Source: pencil drawing by William Bassett-Smith [aka William Smith], shown in an advertissement at eBay [accessed 25 October 2006]
Copyright Instructions: PD
view of font
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © [in the public domain]
Image Source: pencil drawing by William Bassett-Smith [aka William Smith], shown in an advertissement at eBay [accessed 25 October 2006]
Copyright Instructions: PD
view of font and cover
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Aidan Simons, 2003
Copyright Instructions: PERMISSION NOT AVAILABLE -- IMAGE NOT FOR PUBLIC USE
INFORMATION
Font ID: 01468FOW
Object Type: Baptismal Font1
Font Century and Period/Style: 12th - 13th century, Late Norman / Transitional?
Cognate Fonts: Similar to the fonts at Feock, Ladock and St. Mewan, in Cornwall. Cox & Harvey (1907) give the font at Bishopsteignton, Devon, as cognate
Church / Chapel Name: Parish Church of St. Fimbarrus [aka Fimbar -- aka St. Nicholas]
Font Location in Church: Inside the church
Church Patron Saint(s): St. Finbar [aka Fimbar, Finbar, Findbarr, Finn Barr Fimbarrus, Barra, Barry] [rebuilt church dedicated to St. Nicholas of Bari in 1336 by the Bishop of Exeter]
Church Notes: The church at Fowey may have been first created by St. Goran in the late 6th century; St. Finn Barr is said to have built his on the same site on his way from Ireland to Rome in the 7th century; the font may date from ca. 1150, the date of the building of the Norman church here and the original dedication to St. Finn Bar; rebuilt in 1328 it was dedicated to St. Nicholas of Bari by the Bishop of Exeter in 1336, but the preference for St. Finn Barr persisted has until today [cf. www.cornrwall-online.co.uk/resorts/fowey.rtm and www.stnicholascenter.org for some historical notes on the site]
Church Address: 5 Church Ave, Fowey PL23 1BU, United Kingdom -- Tel.: +44 1726 833091
Site Location: Cornwall, South West, England, United Kingdom
Directions to Site: Located at the end of the A3082, E of St. Austell, in the Gribbin Head-Polperro Heritage coast
Additional Comments: recycled font: originally from the old Norman church, later reused in the consecutive churches
Font Notes:
Click to view
Noted in Lysons (1806-1833) as one of a group of remarkable fonts in this county. Described in Cox & Harvey (1907) as "a handsome cup-shaped Norman font [but listed in C&H (ibid.) as Early English], rather small for the church, which is strikingly like that of Bishopsteignton in Devon" [ill. of the Bishopsteignton font in C&H (1907]. Cox (1912) lists this as a 13th-century font made of "dark Catacleuse stone, sometimes mistaken for Purbeck", though, later in the same source, Cox writes: "Circular Norm[an] font of Catacleuse stone, 29 in. in diameter and 38 in. high, on new base, is beautifully carved with band of double-star ornament
round rim, and with a continuous deeply cut pattern of seven-leaved foliations round rim." [NB: Dr. John L. Symonds, of Cronulla, NSW, Australia, sent BSI a citation from S.V. Daniell's The Story of Cornwall's Churches (Truro: Tor Mark Press, [s.d.]), in which Daniell describes the fonts at Feock, Fowey and Ladock as being similar and "probably from the same hand". The WEB site for Cornwall-online [cf. ChurchNotes for URL] describes the font as a survivor of the Norman church of ca. 1150, with an unfinished part left as it was at the death of the carver, and the material as "hard elvan from a quarry near Padstow". Noted in Pevsner (1970): "Font. Norman, of Catacleuse stone, with rosettes in circles and an upper border of crossed zigzag lines. Good workmanship. The same workshop supplied very similar fonts to Ladock, Feock, and St. Mewan." A drawing of this font by Victorian architect William Bassett-Smith [aka William Smith] (1831-1901) made a pencil drawing on 2 September 1859 [NB: the drawing was up for sale on eBay on 24 October 2006]
round rim, and with a continuous deeply cut pattern of seven-leaved foliations round rim." [NB: Dr. John L. Symonds, of Cronulla, NSW, Australia, sent BSI a citation from S.V. Daniell's The Story of Cornwall's Churches (Truro: Tor Mark Press, [s.d.]), in which Daniell describes the fonts at Feock, Fowey and Ladock as being similar and "probably from the same hand". The WEB site for Cornwall-online [cf. ChurchNotes for URL] describes the font as a survivor of the Norman church of ca. 1150, with an unfinished part left as it was at the death of the carver, and the material as "hard elvan from a quarry near Padstow". Noted in Pevsner (1970): "Font. Norman, of Catacleuse stone, with rosettes in circles and an upper border of crossed zigzag lines. Good workmanship. The same workshop supplied very similar fonts to Ladock, Feock, and St. Mewan." A drawing of this font by Victorian architect William Bassett-Smith [aka William Smith] (1831-1901) made a pencil drawing on 2 September 1859 [NB: the drawing was up for sale on eBay on 24 October 2006]
COORDINATES
UTM: 30U 383595 5577198
Latitude & Longitude (Decimal): 50.33536, -4.63569
Latitude & Longitude (DMS): 50° 20′ 7.3″ N, 4° 38′ 8.48″ W
MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS
Material: stone, Cornish Elvan stone? / Catacleuse stone?
Font Shape: bucket-shaped, mounted
Basin Interior Shape: round
Basin Exterior Shape: round
Diameter (includes rim): 75 cm* / 72.5 cm**
Font Height (less Plinth): 87 cm* / 95 cm**
Notes on Measurements: * [measurements given as 2.9' total height x 2.5' outer diameter of the basin in William Bassett-Smith's pencil drawing of 1859] -- ** [in inches in Cox (1912)]
LID INFORMATION
Date: modern?
Material: wood
Apparatus: no
Notes: flat and plain (sports a tall Latin cross on it but it does appear to be part of the cover)
REFERENCES
- Betjeman, John, An American's Guide to English Parish Churches (including the Isle of Man), New York: McDowell, Obolensky, 1958, p. 120
- Clarke, Kate M., "The baptismal fonts of Devon -- Part IV", 48, Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature and Art, 1916, pp. 302-319; p. 312
- Cox, John Charles, Cornwall, London: George Allen & Company, 1912, p. 13, 104-105
- Cox, John Charles, English Church Furniture, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1907, p. 191, 193
- Lysons, Daniel, Magna Britannia, being a concise topographical account of the several counties of Great Britain, London: Printed for T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1806-1822, vol. III: p. ccxxiii
- Pevsner, Nikolaus, Cornwall, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1970, p. 70